Word In Your Ear

Mary Coughlan – aka “Ireland’s Billie Holiday”, adored by Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan and Elvis Costello - is on tour again in 2026. This warm, funny and circuitous conversation looks back from her home in Wicklow at the first shows she ever saw and played and various milestones along the road, among them … … singing Two Little Orphans (aged 5) at a Christmas party: “The adrenaline rush! Applause and lemonade!” … escaping down ladders from school to see Rory Gallagher in Galway and the nuns waiting when she returned … seeing Donovan on the Aran Islands in 1969, a trip from the mainland by currach … meeting Mike Stoller and re-recording Peggy Lee’s savaged Mirrors album: “more relevant now than ever”… Elton John (dressed as a hornet) at Watford Stadium and the embroidered floral skirt she’d made to watch him … her love of cabaret and old 78s and the songs she and Erik Visser chose to launch her career … her transformative slot on the Late Late Show in 1984: “I played to four people the night before; a week later they were queuing round the block” … Frank Sinatra’s mysterious autocue and sitting next to Roger Moore in his audience (“very orange”) … “I adored St Dominic’s Preview and 15 years later Van Morrison was in my dressing-room” … her cure for insomnia … why Joe Strummer meant so much to her … and her 200-song live repertoire – from Meet Me Where They Play The Blues and Don’t Smoke In Bed to Love Will Tear Us Apart. Order Mary Coughlan tickets here: https://www.marycoughlan.ie/upcoming-showsHelp us keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

‘January,’ a revered pop lyricist once wrote, ‘sick and tired you've been hanging on me.’ And if that’s the mood down your way, this might help crank up the heat, alighting as it does upon the following …  … Guns N’Roses and the imperial age of the pop video: director Nigel Dick remembers the $750,000 budget … ‘lost elfin Scots superstar’: missing Incredible String Band member found after 40 years! … comparing the original West End Girls to the re-made worldwide hit: “like a Top Of The Pops album doing the same song” … the three ages of Bowie and why he’s becoming a religious cult … gangster-wall-papering the Melody Maker office as an Ian Dury promo stunt ... the magic of stars’ childhood bedrooms … “he’s got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin”: Star Wars in a nutshell … Tales of Brave Ulysses: psychedelia in under three minutes …. and has there ever been a fictional band as convincing as McGwyer Mortimer? Andy Miller on Licorice McKecknie here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/incredible-band-146577648 Nigel Dick’s wonderful video for God Only Knows here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXhEkug1G-QHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Cartwheeling into 2026 with the usual cast of rock and roll heroes and pantomime villains. Behind you this week you’ll find … … Boy George? Rick Wakeman? Chas Smash? Vanilla Ice? Pop stars who’ve done panto … will there ever be another Rock Knighthood? … Dylan, Elton, Chrissie Hynde and Lil Wayne mention Brigitte Bardot in songs: but who’s seen any of her films? … “the Brigitte Bardot idea of beauty was conceived at the same time as the idea of rock and roll” … Chris Rea’s obsession with Miles Davis – and the tale of Benny Santini … Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ and ‘Hello’ by the Beloved and their roll calls of saints and sinners  … David saw Bob Marley at the Lyceum but now thinks he’s seen a show that was even better … the great attraction of cinema is “our furtive dreams in the dark” … what Van Morrison owes Hugh McCracken for the intro to Brown-Eyed Girl … and birthday guest Andrew Slattery’s Hepworth v Ellen SmashWaddy reviews quiz!Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Peter Hammill has spent nearly six decades building the most devoted following imaginable – Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Mark E Smith among them. ‘Rock And Role’ tells his invigorating story, beautifully illustrated with photos, cuttings, artwork and memorabilia. Author Joe Banks looks back at his life, impact and captivating way with words, and stops off at …  … the value of looks and charisma in the days when labels hadn’t the faintest idea of the future … how Hammill “created a world to live inside and broadcast from” … psychedelic cabaret with wolf masks and blood capsules … meeting Hammill’s muse and former girlfriend Alice: “50 years later, each still think the other one left them” … “songs that ask the big questions about life” … discovering VDGG in 1984 (via Marillion) and piecing together their story in the days before the internet … public school, Gilbert & Sullivan and the Hallelujah Chorus … the influence of A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers on Genesis’ Supper’s Ready … his plans with Mark E Smith and how Bowie had every new album delivered to him all his life … Charisma, Tony Stratton-Smith and the freedom to experiment … the intensity of his following in Japan and Italy: “there’s no such thing as a casual Hammill fan”. Order ‘Rock And Role’ here: https://burningshed.com/store/kingmakerHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Deck the halls with cheese and Bolly! … and a dish of the usual rock and roll distraction which this week throws the following logs on the fire … … the greatest Xmas single ever? … Metal Machine Music, Cut the Crap, Two Sides of the Moon … can panned records ever be rehabilitated? … how Roxy Music invented ‘rock brand-value’ and turned it into pictures … Joe Ely and the romance of songs about the American landscape … Rob Reiner and why that scene in When Harry Met Sally is the greatest marriage of people and ideas … the real-life moment that inspired Spinal Tap … “most American pop music is about geography” … "I keep my fingernails long so they click when I play the piano" … Jordan Carl Wheeler Davis? Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr? Mystery acts playing Wembley Arena … the British think America is “fabulous and otherworldly”. Americans think Britain is “quaint” … plus the magnificent McGarrigles’ Christmas Hour, farewell Hofner and we name the Finnegan’s Wake of rock music!Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com.wordinyourear

Beloved Australian songwriter Paul Kelly has just turned 70 – “it sounds Biblical, threescore years and ten.” He looks back here at the road he took to get there, from early days in Adelaide to the pub circuit to his catalogueof stirring and eloquent songs about the big issues of life and love, as Neil Finn says, “with not a trace of pretence or fakery”. You’ll find … … the moment he felt he’d arrived … the story of How To Make Gravy – “a Christmas song with no chorus about a man in prison” – and Rita Wrote A Letter, its ghostly sequel … early records he loved – Tommy Roe, Peter Paul & Mary, Yes, Deep Purple, Frank Zappa, the “chaotic” Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong … life on the Melbourne pub circuit playing Neil Young, Gram Parsons and Hank Williams … touring with Leonard Cohen – “a masterclass in performance, like a prayer, a ritual, like a Vaudevillian Rabbi” .. the storytelling songs of the Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers and Buck Owens ... the great Calypso cricket tradition and the track he wrote about Shane Warne … “the odd-sock drawer”: the file in his computer where he stores early sketches … I’m In Love With A Blue Frog, the five chords that underpinned 50 years of songwriting! … the intricacy of Neil Finn’s impressionistic lyrics … and the things you hear in your songs when someone else sings them. Order Paul Kelly’s ‘Seventy’ here: https://paulkelly.lnk.to/seventyHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Lucinda Williams was a teenage activist singing We Shall Overcome at protest marches and she’s taken up the cudgels again on her new album World’s Gone Wrong. She talks to us here from her home in Nashville about … … early inspirations - Dylan, Donovan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Buffy Sainte-Marie – and her love of Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake and ‘60s British folk … playing Delta blues for tips at Andy’s in Bourbon Street in 1971 … her sudden favourite Beatle switch – “Paul … then George!” … her Dad’s Ray Charles and Hank Williams records … seeing jazz pianist Sweet Emma Barrett in Preservation Hall in the ‘60s and Hendrix at a New Orleans sports arena … the effect of her stroke in 2020 and having to re-learn the guitar – “I tend to write in G now as it’s the easiest chord to play” … the allure of medieval murder ballads, “far too dark” for most Americans ... songs she always plays live (one by Neil Young) … finding her tribe in Nashville – “when I arrived people asked, ‘What church do you go to?’ not ‘Do you go to church’?” … being “a quarter Welsh” … and the song she wrote about her president in 2018 – 'We have slow-danced with the devil/ We have swallowed the liquid of his lies’ - and the new version she’s just recorded. 2026 tickets here: https://www.lucindawilliams.com/tour Order World’s Gone Wrong here: https://30tgrs.ffm.to/worldsgonewrongHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Shock, horror, public outcry and moments of moral turpitude plus with the usual news, rants and old hokum, which this week alights upon … … why Gene Simmons thinks “musicians are treated worse than slaves” ... the high noon of Madonna and her foil-wrapped Sex book … is Rufus Wainwright pop’s most successful nepo-baby? … how CMAT forced Bertie Ahern to pull out of the Irish Presidency … the Stackwaddy Quiz: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You? Getting Killed? Sinister Grift? Pitchfork Album of the Year or an entry in the Berlin Film Festival? … from Mods & Rockers to illegal raves: pop scandals that hit the headlines … can we blame Gap for the moment kids started to dress the same? … was the death of Top Of The Pops the end of the pop consensus? … Fela Kuta, arrested 200 times … Jackson Browne, “never far from tragedy” … is ‘70s funk and soul the best driving music? … 42 year-old hears Hejira and the Stooges’ Metallic KO for the first time … plus Tetsu Yamauchi RIP, David Sylvian in a converted ashram in New Hampshire and birthday guest Sandra Austin. CMAT’s Euro-Country (which skewered Bertie Ahern): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz8_HxITJF0&list=RDnz8_HxITJF0&start_radio=1 Dave Brubeck ‘playing’ Golden Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qs1J612nZsHelp us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

What’s the word ‘punk’ come to mean 50 years later? It’s been adopted by the very people it sought to unsettle. Chris Sullivan – DJ, club runner, lecturer, former band-leader – arrived in London just as it kicked off and looks back at a time when everything was a challenge, no-one apologised, outsiders linked up and fought for recognition, and pop culture could change overnight. We talk to him here about ‘Punk: the Last Word’ which traces its roots from Socrates to Soho, touching on… … does ‘punk’ now mean conformity? … is pop music still allowed to be outrageous? … Socrates, Rimbaud, Lee Miller, the Warhol superstars: 2,000 years of people who embody the punk philosophy … how the clothes often precede the music … the 1975 pre-Pistols world – “people dressing as teddy boys, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, records by Patti Smith, the Velvets, MC5” … the days when you were attacked for dressing up, in his case by the Newport Rugby team and a guy with a starting handle at a service station ... new punk equivalents emerging in 2025 … how the spirit of punk gave people a drive and identity – Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Jonathan Ross, John Galliano  … “I threw a policeman through a plate-glass window” Order ‘Punk: the Last Word’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/punk/stephen-colegrave/chris-sullivan/9781915841254Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear